Not Happy
by Xx.Toxic.Little.KisseS.xX
Summary: Paine has a secret, and Tidus cant help his curiousity...


**Muse Notes: ** Hmm, never heard of this pairing before, hope someone actually finds it even, lol...

**Pairing:** Paine x Tidus, mentions of Yuna x Gippal

**Rating:** Just K a snog, that is it...sorry, fluffy with a bit if angst...mostly sweet... n,n (lol)

**Author:** JaDeDwithScArS

**Authors note:** This pairing sounds fun to me, I looked and there was so few here so I thought I would post it, hope you like! _-fingers crossed-_

**x.o.x.o.x.o.x.o.x**

**Not Happy**

Paine sighed into the darkness. "How exactly is this helpful Tidus?" She asked.

Tidus chuckled somewhere to her left, breath brushing her hair from her hair from her ear gently, unwittingly sending shivers down her spine. "You're a good fighter, I want to see how I fare."

The dark haired woman sighed and shifted her weight, her leather pants shifting with the slightest of sounds. "Now? Its four thirty in the morning." She muttered, her voice husky as she struggled to properly awaken. She felt her sword being pushed into her hands and her eyes flashed open, revealing bright pink eyes.

"Your not scared are you Paine?" Tidus growled, his own shining blue eyes laughing. "Afraid you'll loose to a dream?"

Paine scowled. "Dont kid yourself, I could take you in my sleep." She stepped back, letting her eyes finally finally adjust to the dark a twisted her body into a fighting stance, her darkened blade tenced and sat unmoving in her pale and delicate but strong hands. "Bring it."

With a smirk, Tidus mirrored her actions, is own glistening sword Brotherhood shimmering with the water magic infused on it. "Gladly."

They ran for each other like the perfect fighters they were, blades swinging down to meet between them in an explosion of sparks and the spray of water. They shifted away from each other, bodies twisting as blades again met and locked, each trying to force the other back until they both parted, leaping back instictivly.

Paine was definently awake now, her body shouting its need to move with every instinctive step, every perfectly judged block or thrust as the blonde blitzball player moved with just as care.

The clacks and thuds of swordplay rang loudly through the woodlands of Kilika Island, but going unheard in the early light. Their body twisted in unison, there 'dance' steadily increasing in strength as they realised each others power. Their blows became deadly, there movements sharper as they forgot who and what they were fighting, drowning out everything but the blade swinging at their own.

Suddenly ducking low and changing his tactics, Tidus attempted to knock her feet out from under her and she pulled back just in time. Her blade plouging forward and freezing just seconds away from his tanned throat, just as Brotherhood pressed against her ribs.

"Live and let live?" Tidus suggested huskily. Some-what out of breath.

Paine smirked. "Something like that."

Their blades immediatly lowered and their batle haze was completely lifted. She held out her hand and helped the swordsman up. "Your pretty good for a dream."

"From what Brother said about your skill I was expecting good fight, but 'pretty good' is an understatement."

Elegant pale shoulders shrugged beneathe a leather shoulder-vest 1. "Is that why you dragged me up here at four thirty in the morning?"

Finnaly Tidus looked sheepish. "I sorta forgot to look at the time." He confessed. "Sorry."

"I wasnt asleep anyway." Paine eventually confessed. She looked the blitzball player over. "Hows Gippal?"

"Happy." The blonde sighed. "He and Yuna go well together."

Paine was watching him perculiarly as she sheathed her blade. "You really did love her didnt you?"

"It would have been selfish of me to stop her moving on, she was just...Yuna, you know?" Tidus confessed. "She is happy with Gippal, and that all I really wanted anyway."

"How noble of you." Paine snorted.

Tidus laughed without mirth. "She never wanted me really. She never once called me by my name...I was just, a distaction, we were fooling ourselves."

"And now your poetic." She grinned, shoving him playfully. "Maybe you do have a point. She seemed a little...Yuna, for you."

"How do you mean?" Tidus asked, honestly curious,

"She was... diffrent then I thought you would go for." Paine shrugged. "When she talked to us about you...there was alwys a feeling in the back of my mind...I dunno, I didnt even know you but you sounded like you were being noble and helping her, making what she had left of her life bearable." She sighed softly. "But maybe you were in love."

"Maybe." Tidus confessed, blue eyes watching the raven hair ahead of him. His mouth opened as if to say more, then closed again, twisting into a smirk as he hurried to catch up.

"Why are we going to the temple?" He said after a moment.

"You only just realised where we were going?" Paine smirked smugly.

"I was thinking." Tidus sniffed defencivly.

"Ah yes, I was wondering wwhere the smoke was coming from." She chuckled huskily. "Havent used your brain in quite a while, eh?"

Tidus pouted sexily without though. (Blame it on being a star blitzball player) "That hurts Paine, cuts me deep."

"Sure, If it could catch you." She snorted, then gave him an apprasing look. "Your damn fast you know that."

"Thanks." He laughed. "Though no matter how fast I was, in a fist fight youd beat me hands down. Ive never met someone with more power behind their blade." He paused for a second. "Well...maybe Auron, but that was only 'cause it had peircing qualities." Suddenly Paine's beautiful but rare laughter cut im off, frezing him in place as if she'd cast stop, or a well aimed blizzard.

"Your rambling Blitzball boy." She informed him. "Your no good at dishing out compliments to girls."

"Normally it worked the other way around in Zanakand." He agreed cheerfully. "I couldnt get a word in edge-wise."

Shaking her head but still with a grin on her face, Paine guesured up the few steps left to Kilika temple. "After you."

"Hang on, I dont even know what where doing here." He countered with a frown.

Paine rolled her eyes. "Weve been partners for two years and you still cant remember that the airship always leaves at dawn."

Tidus crossed his arms. "Considering its only five, there's still another hour til dawn."

"Is it my fault you were up and sparring at four thirty?" She scolded. "We can wait, you need to learn patience."

"No I dont, what did I spend all that time learning provoke for if only to spend my time counting the seconds away? You only live once, even if your a dream." He told her, but moved up the steps anyway, his shoes hitting the stone with little sound, and hers with none as she followed him easily.

"Patience is important because you never know when youll find an enemy who's just as fast you." She informed him. "I couldnt have walked out of that without winning if I didnt have patience..." She smiled. "Or a chocobo that wouldnt run off at the sight of battle."

Tidus laughed his beautiful, heart-stopping laugh. "I can so see you fighting from a chocobo."

She shook her head at the way he could make her heart soar with one thoughtless laugh. She was falling for the man, and no matter how much she told herself to fight it, that they were partners and he almost definentely did not feel the same way.

She hadnt felt this way since Nooj and that part of her life was as far behind her as Vegnagun, if not as far as Sin. How could Tidus cause feelings she'd promised to forget. More yet, how could he do it and not even notice?

"Paine?" The blonde in question chuckled, waving a gloved hand in front of his friends face. "Heeelo? Paine? You in there?"

Paine pushed his hand away. "Quit it." She scolded. "Im thinking."

Tidus rolled his eyes. "I caught that much." He informed her. "Gil for your thoughts?"

"Nothing, dont worry."

"I am worried, it scares me when you go back into Paine mode, where I cant help you." He told her. "Then who's gunna teach me patience?"

Despite the joke, Paine heard the real concern in his voice and her heart swelled, before she bit her lip hard to deflate it a little. "Im sure you could find someone to teach you." She laughed softly.

"You can tell me anything Paine, you know that right?" He pushed, eyes twinkling with true worry.

"Sure Tidus." She smiled.

He frowned at her, knowing she wasnt telling him anything and turned to face her with a frown as they reached the top of the huge stairs. "Weve been friends for a long time now, ever since I took Yuna's place as a sphere hunter. You can tell me anything. Absolutel anything and I wont hold it against you."

Paine sighed and bit her lip, worrying it. "I dont think this is some thing I could talk about with you." She informed him softly.

Tidus put his covered hands on her shoulders. "Now im really worried. You have to tell me."

"Im...im scared what will happen if I do." She confessed, avoiding his eyes. Her hand went instinctively to her blades hilt and he noticed.

"Then ill take the decision out of your hands." He offered. Paine shot him a strange look, one somewhere between worry and curiousity. "I'll fight you for it."

She was shoked. Caught between laughing it off, knowing she could loose and hae to confess it all.

"No draws this time." Tidus pushed. "If I win, you tell me. You win...what do you want?"

"If I win, I never have to tell you what im thinking ever again." She offered quietly, agreeing to his terms.

He grinned, eyes twinkling once more. "Bring it on." he chuckled, pulling away from the fighter and backing further onto the platform he had once fought the shelled Sin spawn on.

She followed, unsheathing her blade and running her hand over the steele skull she fell back into her fighting stance. She couldnt afford to lose this one.

Tidus steaded Brotherhood in hand and watched her for a moment, before taking the first move, as always. He ran towards her, sweeping the blue blade wide. She ducked, avoiding it easily and striking back with a well aimed thrust, _determined_ not to loose this.

He pulled back, her hit missing and their blades swung forward with a clang, before sliding away and twisting with their owners as the fighters took up the dance again, there adrenaline making up for the tiredness. It was so soon since their last fight, but Paine would never admit that and Tidus was to worried over his friend..his beautiful, wonderful, silent but amazing friend!

The that he had to make smile every time he saw her, had to make laugh every time he could.

The one he couldnt stop thinking about...The one he was falling in love with. It was nothing like what he felt with Yuna. This was more, appreciation and awe mingled with attraction and the feeling he would die just to please her. Die and go back to that endless plain of lifelessness, just so she could smile that too-rare smile.

He shook his head sharply when his thoughts tried to break his consentration. He was loosing battle patience, and he couldnt if he wanted to know what was wrong with Paine. He had to beat her and there was no other way around it.

Brotherhood suddenly changed tatics, twisting in a powerful backwards blow. Paine was shoked and could only step forward into the hit, letting her sword take the blow and stepped back, but the blondes blade again stopped her as it swung high, forcing her to block. How had she misread his speed? No one was faster, even with Haste on their auras. She bit her lip, to force her mind to try harder, for her feet to hit the ground with more passion, and to guide her thrusts home.

She attacked, blade flying inwards and catching brotherhood low, close to the hilt. Tidus glided free and swung back into the fray letting sparks fly. Water flew from his enchanted(2) blade, momentarily blinding her.

Paine gasped and hurried herself back, to try and blink the liquad out before he could attack again.

As usual when faced against the blonde, his foe wasnt quick enough. Paine fell backwards and Tidus straddled her, pinning her down and pressing brotherhood against her throat. "I win." He narrated smugly, though he was panting with exhastion and his hands were begging to tremble.

Water falling from her closed eyes like tears and pants pushed from her thraot like sobs. "Guess you do." She told him, her voice calm, if excessively husky.

They sat like that for a moment, brotherhood falling to one side as they caught their breath. "Tell me." The blonde finally pushed, impatient as always.

Paine took a deep breath and decided to start from the begining. "A long time ago...I was in love with Nooj..." She confessed, eyes still closed. Leather whispered as both young adults shifted, without Tidus moving off. "He was so...quiet I wasnt sure how he felt about me, but I knew he cared to some degree."

Tidus watched the woman before him, her face caught somewhere between sadness and acceptence. "After everything we went through...we slept together. It was rushed and messy...but I didnt care 'cause it was him, you know?" She dared not open her eyes, fearing wha she would see but she had lost, so she had to tell. "We went our seprate ways after that. He wanted time to brood and I wanted time to think. When I saw him next...just before I fought Vegnagun..." She sighed and tried to lift her hands to brush her hair out of her face and was startled when Tidus did it for her.

Her eyes flashed open with easy to see shock.

He smiled tenderly at her. "He was with Leblanc?"

Paine nodded slowly. "It made me so mad at the time. I thought what we did was special. He only saw it as a temperary release from duties or something." She shrugged the best she could in her posistion. "Leblanc was who he loves, no matter if he doesnt show it."

"He was wrong." Tidus said after a moment.

At the rise of a slim black eyebrow he blushed. "If I was with you...It would be special. Your special." He watched her for a moment. "If I knew you when Sin was living Paine. I would have never fallen in love with Yuna. The feelings I feel around you would have stopped me from looking in her direction ever again. To her I was a temperary release. It wasnt love, it was a way out."

Paines heart skipped a beat at his passionate words but she had to ask. "So what would I have been four years ago? When you were a dream and Sin was alive?"

"Hopefully what you could be after today." The blonde whispered. "Mine?"

Leting her breath out in a soft sigh she smiled at him. "Yours." She agreed. She trusted that smile, those baby-blue eyes. Tidus would never hurt her.

He leant in with a smirk. "Forever."

Their lips met in unison, though neither seemed to shift. Tidus rested his hands above her shoulders, pinning her against the ground as he ran his tongue softly against her lower lip. She gasped at the unfamiliar sensations and he took the chance and let their tongues meet, as they would be spending alot of time with each other if he had anything to say about it.

She moaned softly into his mouth as his skilled tongue explored her mouth, fasanated with every part of her. His hands lazily traced her sides, fingers dancing across bare and leather covered skin alike as he plundered her mouth.

Her hands freed themselves, tangling in his hair as they pulled apart reluctantly for air. "I...love you Paine. I want you to know that."

"I think I love you too Tidus." The dark haired fighter whispered, before bending forward to kiss him strongly.

Passion was strong, stronger than either had felt before and they forgot they were lying before the temple on the stones where anyone could see them. They were in _love_. Truley in love.

"Gullwings are not supposed to be kissing one another like this." Brother informed them hautily, catching them off gaurd. They sprung apart sheepishyly. Just in time to catch Rikku slapping him on the upside of the head.

"Hush you! Look at them, their happy!" She scolded with a grin. "For once!"

"Not happy." Tidus corrected, ignoring Paines worried gasp and threading his fingers with hers. "Better."

She sighed at his sappy comment but wrapped her fingers around him and added quietly, almost to herself. "In love."

**x.o.x.o.x.o.x.o.x**

**A/N:** Hehe! How bloody romantic can you get Jaffa?

Hope you like the short little thang.

C'mon, hit that lovely little button...you know you want to.

Jade Andrea Fawkes

xxxooo


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